P1: Theme Project Pitch

Introduction

Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L. Moench)] is the world’s fifth most important cereal crop, in terms of both production and area planted. It is an increasingly relevant grain crop due to its resilience to drier and hotter climates. The United States is the world’s largest producer of grain sorghum, having produced 373 million bushels in 2020. Sorghum is typically grown in dryland areas from South Dakota to South Texas and Texas accounts for ~1.8 million of the United States’ ~5.8 million acres of sorghum production.

The idea for this visualization project is to use the Texas A&M Variety Testing and USDA NASS data repositories on grain sorghum production to visualize yield and production trends for the state of Texas.

Inspiration

First, there already exists at least two examples of mapping the county-level production of sorghum acres. The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service’s reported maps. And also, Zachary Stansell’s tool to map USDA crop data which uses these APIs.

Second, a visualization like this is good inspiration for something that could allow you to slide through years and see the changing geographic heat map of Texas trends.

arctic gif

Sketch

Our sketch of what the final product will look like.